Knowledge fusion based product visual customization technology

In mass customization environment, consumers, partners or distributors, taking part in product design and get through their ideas, online and visually, to suppliers, is very important. In this paper, approach of customer participation in product customization design was studied. In order to make customers know the working principal and structure of the product, we should provide enough knowledge about the product for the customers, and also for the designers. So multi-source knowledge representation techniques based on XML were studied first. Product design knowledge three-tier expression model including geometric topology tier, semantic rules tier and product family data tier was established. According to the product life-cycle knowledge characteristics in different stages, product´s multi-level knowledge expression method was studied and XML-based knowledge node representation mechanism was given. With the support of multi-source knowledge, the method of applying product family primary structure to achieve product customization was studied, and product configurations based on AND-OR-TREE was proposed. All the parts library and the product family primary structure were supported by the product data management (PDM) system, and the 3D CAD models were based on the NX and Pro/E systems. BS Contact toolkit was used as the visual tool for visualization in the thin client (such as Internet Explorer) as plug-ins. Ultimately, visual remote customization system based on a VRML/X3D is achieved.